Zero Days Sober
In the hours after the decision by Tennessee to eradicate black representation, the response on social media seems to be “All eyes on TN!” and “History will not be kind!’ but not much else other than the same old slacktivist editorializing.
History isn’t something that just happens while we pile shit we don’t need into our Amazon carts. The Capitol building in Nashville should be under siege right now in a way that would make J6 look like a cartoon, but it isn’t. And it won’t be. White Tennesseans should be leading that charge too, but they aren’t. And they won’t.
That’s why legislators in Tennessee were laughing at the protestors as they took their representation away. They know no one is actually going to stand up in any meaningful way. They’ll draw up witty picket signs, chant the chants, post some memes, and that’ll be it until the next disgusting, klansucking law another red state legislature passes. Process repeats.
Social media overflows with people editorializing, blathering, and engagement bait. “This will not stand!” they say, but what are they really doing?
If your first response is to ask me what I am doing then you’re doing fuck all, and trying to justify it. Make sure you “proceed to checkout” in the next 58 minutes so you get your free next day shipping.
Fascism does not yield to well reasoned arguments, witticisms, memes, picket signs, or “calls for” justice. Fascism yields when it is brought to heel by force; an impassable wedge placed in its path that it cannot climb, circle, or dig beneath. It yields when it is forced to eat a bullet in a bunker and its carcass is hung upside down on the public square.
If you’re holding out for relief in November, think again. The Supreme Court and red state legislatures just showed you they are willing to strip you of your freedoms to preserve their power. They will win even if they lose, and won’t your memes be spicy then!
We invoke the lessons of history to sound the alarm, but ignore how the fires of the past were extinguished. No one is coming, and we are pretty much engulfed now.
And that’s why I make no attempt at sobriety.